There was also a P-3C ASW Patrol Aircraft passing through the area as I recall. It was also singled out as the perpetrator of the shot. As far as I know, it has no armament at all capable of engaging an air target. It can carry Harpoon missiles (Anti-surface) and Torpedos.
I'm telling you, you can't fire a missile in the Navy and nobody notice. Every one of the things has a serial number and the Navy knows where everyone of them is. Every time the thing is moved, traded, or whatever the master database is updated. I amd my various division officers did a lot of agonizing accounting for every round of ammunitiion of the ship from .45 caliber up through Harpoons to ensure that not a single one went astray.
If its fired for training it has telemetry on it and a whole bunch of federal civilians and contractors monitoring it. A lot of people know when its going to be fired and a Notice to Mariners and Notice to Airmen is filed blocking off the firing range.
Civilian and military aircraft and ships have been hit by errant shots before and none of them went unnoticed.
Now, if some terrorist in a boat launched a light SAM at the plane then I don't know. I don't think any of them are capable of engaging at 12k feet. I don't think a Stinger can hit something at that altitude.
I did not suggest or imply that.
I again refer everyone to the following graphic which depicts the firing locations and solutions for a Tier Two MANPAD SAM... using the specific altitude and speed of TWA-800:
It is indeed possible. Note that the best possible shots are from directly in front of the heading of TWA-800 but there are many on either side...
THE FBI and FLIGHT 800 Village Voice Published: July 14-20, 1999 Author: Robert Davey
The missile expert has also been in contact with military labs where, he says, the chemists have been unable to make jet fuel vapor explode as the NTSB says it did in TWA 800's center fuel tank. "The labs told the NTSB there's a big problem—it can't happen." The NTSB wouldn't listen. He says, "They were adamant that [the labs] had to find something."
The missile expert says his unit was summoned by the FBI quite early in the investigation and asked to review the eyewitness accounts and check out the potential for a successful missile hit. "We talked to Ted Otto and Steve Bongardt"—two agents assigned by FBI assistant director James Kallstrom to examine the missile theory. "We picked missiles and ran computer simulations and shipped the data to Bongardt," the Voice source says. The data showed that virtually any post–Vietnam era shoulder-launched missile would have had the range and infrared seeker capability to reach the plane at 13,700 feet, he says.
The accounts were so persuasive, he says, that Otto and Bongardt arranged a meeting in Washington, D.C., in late '96 to discuss them and other data. A high-powered group convened around the table—the CIA and other military and intelligence agencies were represented but not the NTSB. "We took a vote, and almost everyone said the plane was shot down," the expert says. Only the CIA remained silent. "The CIA was very quiet." Someone asked if there was a warning prior to the disaster of a terrorist attack. "The CIA wouldn't say," he recalls.
And there was more—the expert mentioned a videotape shot by a man on Long Island one night during the weeks preceding the crash, which appeared to show a rocket trail rising skyward. "The FBI showed it to us as interesting evidence," the expert says. It looked like the trail of a missile, he adds. FBI assistant director Kallstrom, now retired from the agency, says he doesn't recall any such video.
You need to read the whole article.